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<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://indypendent.org/2017/06/black-power-takes-root-in-the-heart-of-dixie/">https://indypendent.org/2017/06/black-power-takes-root-in-the-heart-of-dixie/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Black Power Takes Root in the Heart of
Dixie</h1>
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<p class="meta"><a
href="https://indypendent.org/authors/marisa-anne-day/">Marisa
Anne Day</a> <span>Jun 5, 2017<br>
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<p class="p1"><font size="-2"><i><span class="s1">One
small correction, <a class="profileLink"
href="https://www.facebook.com/CooperationJackson/?fref=mentions"
data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=464538680344607&extragetparams=%7B%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D"
data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1">Cooperation
Jackson</a> has only been around 3 years. May
1st, 2017 was our 3rd birthday. I've been doing
work with the <a class="profileLink"
href="https://www.facebook.com/MXGMnational/?fref=mentions"
data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=61213567959&extragetparams=%7B%22fref%22%3A%22mentions%22%7D"
data-hovercard-prefer-more-content-show="1">Malcolm
X Grassroots Movement</a> for 20 years. - Kali
Akuno<br>
</span></i></font></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">J</span><span class="s1">ackson
is the largest city in Mississippi. Surrounded by
prosperous white suburbs, it is more than 80 percent
Black and overwhelmingly working-class. “If you are
making $10 an hour here you are doing damn good,” says
Kali Akuno, who for 20 years has been a driving force
in <a href="http://www.cooperationjackson.org/">Cooperation
Jackson</a>, a community organizing hub intent on
radically changing business as usual in Mississippi’s
capital city and creating a model for local movements
in the United States and around the world. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">The movement for Black
self-determination that Akuno helps to lead has roots
in Mississippi that date back to the 1970s. After
decades of base building work by the Malcolm X
Grassroots Movement (MXGM) and others, radical lawyer
Chokwe Lumumba was elected mayor of Jackson in 2013
only to die less than eight months into his first term
in office. In May, his son <a
href="http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2017/may/11/chokwe-antar-lumumba-wins-democratic-primary-jacks/">Chokwe
Antar Lumumba</a> won the Democratic primary on a
platform of food sovereignty, zero waste and creating
a solidarity economy. He is all but certain to be the
next mayor of Jackson. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">When Antar takes office, he
will face a hostile white business elite and a
Republican-controlled state legislature that will try
to stymie him at every turn. Akuno is one of Antar’s
closest advisors. He recently spoke with <i>The
Indypendent</i> about the challenges that lie ahead
and the Jackson movement’s enduring source of
strength. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"><b><i>Marisa Anne Day: What
do you hope to achieve?</i></b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">Kali Akuno: The
construction of economic democracy from the ground up,
the transformation of the economy and the social
relationships that frame what makes us human. That is
not something we can do alone.</span></p>
<p class="p3">We hope to inspire and offer a model to
others who want to pick this up. We want to continue
drawing from eclectic sources of inspiration — the
Mondragon worker cooperatives in Spain, the Zapatistas,
cooperatives in the South going back 200 years in the
Black community, [cooperative] projects in the early
days of Tanzania, Algeria, Guyana. The first step for
Cooperation Jackson is to build a vibrant social and
solidarity economy in Jackson that can form a
stepping-stone to economic democracy.</p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s1"><b><i>What is the
significance of this victory for organizing in the
United States? </i></b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s2">It demonstrates that the
left can win in the United States, win electoral
victories, make gains in a struggle to control the
means of production. It has a broader significance
with the election of Donald Trump. Our victory in
Jackson points to a way forward. Take some heart from
it, all is not doom and gloom. We can organize
ourselves to fight back and counter the moves of these
reactionary forces. If we do our work right we can
start dictating the social momentum and rearticulate
some of the fundamental norms of society. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s1">What the country is facing
with this neo-Confederate neo-fascist regime on a
federal level, we have been living with here in
Mississippi for quite some time. Black, Indigenous,
Latino communities have been figuring out ways to not
only survive but to push back. Our electoral victory
highlights what is possible when you resist these
forces — and what type of work it takes: long term,
patient, strategic base-building work, which we have
been concentrating on here for about 40 years.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s3"><b><i>A lot of movements
talk about empowering “the people” but after they
win elections fail to come through. How will you
resist that?</i></b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s3">Our beliefs alone are not
enough to safeguard us against right drift and
institutionalization. An effective counterweight is
having political organization with multiple ideologies
within it. Having that diversity was a saving grace
[with Chokwe Lumumba] because you had folks,
especially from anarchist tendencies, who were
suspicious about going into government. A lively
debate and struggle was one safeguard.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">The Jackson People’s
Assembly is the dominant accountability mechanism.
Direct engagement is where the assembly has its
strength and can apply pressure on Chokwe Antar or
anybody else in that position. The People’s Assembly
was built to be a dual power institution, with the
ability to shape society on its own without the
assistance of government.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s3"><b><i>How do you maintain
buy-in beyond ideological divides?</i></b> </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s3">We don’t recruit or engage
with folks on the basis of “you have to believe what I
believe in order to struggle and work with me.” That
takes a backseat to “I’m here because an injury has
been inflicted upon you or upon our community and
let’s figure out a collective way that we can address
this issue.” People find out what you believe through
your practice first and foremost, and then your
statement of why you are engaged in the struggle
afterward.</span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">In Mississippi, the
out-and-out nature of white supremacy helps to keep a
focus in the community. I might have differences with
you about this belief or that strategy but in the face
of having to confront people who are visibly in the
Klan, it gives people a clear orientation: We are in a
struggle and my contributions to it are critical to my
own survival. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">This context is why the
radical message of a Chokwe Lumumba or a Chokwe Antar
has resonance in a place that is deeply conservative
and religious, and why so many people who don’t share
their ideological views have trust in them. The
perception in the Black community is: “They have been
consistent fighters against the forces of white
supremacy and exploitation. I know what sacrifices
they and the members of MXGM have made by standing up
to the Klan.” </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">We work on that common
ground and over time we have won a lot of people over
who wouldn’t necessarily use that rhetoric but would
say, I am for democracy in the workplace. You see a
gradual movement and a broader adoption of these ideas
and principles.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s3"><b><i>What is the situation
in Jackson you are stepping into? What forces in
Mississippi are aligned against you? </i></b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s3">The primary force of
opposition against us is the Greater Jackson Chamber
of Commerce. The Chamber is dominated by white
businessmen, almost none of whom live in Jackson
proper. They live in the white suburbs that were
constructed to accommodate white flight. Jackson is
still a city where a large portion of its businesses
remain in the hands of a small white minority elite. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">Jackson is over 80 percent
Black. Most of that, overwhelmingly, is Black working
class. That includes sectors where the real
unemployment rate is closer to 50 percent of the adult
population. Wages are extremely low; if you are making
$10 an hour here you are doing damn good. That would
be damn near a Black middle-class wage here in
Jackson. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">The Black community, by its
numbers, can put people in office but their ability to
govern can be constrained because the economic base of
the city is controlled elsewhere. One of the threats
is if you elect Chokwe Antar, all these white-owned
businesses are going to leave town. What that does is
shrink the tax base, the revenues to operate. That is
pointing a gun at the city and saying you have to go
this way for the economy not to collapse. For the
community to consistently vote in a way that says
“Yeah, I know that gun is to my head and I’m going to
vote this way anyway” says a lot. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">The Chamber is not making
idle threats. They have concrete plans to gentrify the
city, to displace the Black working class, because if
they can change the population dynamics they can
eliminate the possibility of a radical like Chokwe
Antar from being elected. </span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s2"><b><i>How do cooperative
networks provide counterweight against those
forces?</i></b></span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1">The bedrock for us is food
sovereignty. Hunger will no longer be a weapon against
the working class. We will utilize all the vacant land
around the city. We can create supply chains based on
our own principles rather than being totally reliant
on “market forces.” </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">We will construct
cooperative enterprises, from food processing to
non-carbon based distribution, bikes and electric
vehicles, to lessen the carbon footprint of the city.
Going to zero emissions and zero waste will accomplish
several goals at once: sustainability, creating jobs,
a better quality of life and ultimately more
self-determination and self-reliance within the
community. </span></p>
<p class="p3"><span class="s3">We are creating an
integrated system, bottom-up efforts, the support of
an administration we control and a policy framework to
give what’s getting done below more teeth.The base is
starting with what is available to us, land,
addressing a concrete need, food, and from there
building out the solidarity economy.</span></p>
<p class="p5"><span class="s4"><b><i>How can people engage
with what you are doing from outside of Jackson?</i></b>
</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s3">Doing this work takes
resources. Our sustainer network annually covers
one-fourth of the cost. Friends of Cooperation Jackson
chapters build relationships of solidarity. The most
concrete way that folks can help is to build
Cooperation New Yorks, like-minded organizations.
Organizing in your own community will help us more
than anything else. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><i>For more, see <a
href="http://cooperationjackson.org">cooperationjackson.org</a>.</i></p>
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